MSF Urges Countries Not to Trade Away Health as Trans-Pacific Trade Pact Negotiations Intensify
The far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) should be a force for improving health outcomes for the more than half a billion people in twelve countries affected by the pact, but instead negotiators are moving towards finalizing a deal that in fact would restrict access to affordable medicines and constrain governments’ ability to protect the health of their citizens, warned Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
“Despite more than 18 months of persistent opposition from its trading partners, the U.S. government has refused to back down from its demands for intellectual property (IP) rules designed to impede timely access to affordable generic medicines,” said Leena Menghaney, MSF Access Campaign Manager, who is attending the negotiations. “The U.S. is keen to block developing country governments from any attempt to control abusive patenting or limit drug patent terms to the internationally-agreed 20 years. These efforts are a repudiation of the U.S. government’s own prior commitments to balance commercial pharmaceutical interests with the public health interests of developing country populations.”
In this 19th round of negotiations, the U.S. may up the ante with a new demand for 12 years of “data exclusivity” protections for biologics, a class of products that includes many lifesaving drugs used to treat conditions such as diabetes, cancer and hepatitis C. Data exclusivity gives companies monopoly rights on drugs by restricting the use of clinical trial data by drug regulators when approving generic drugs or “biosimilar” versions of drugs and vaccines. Data exclusivity therefore creates a new patent-like barrier to accessing medicines and vaccines, even when these products are not protected by patents.